It’s obvious to most what happened last night.
Debora asked about a race.
Not understanding I asked “about what?” Honest question.
But then it dawned on my to check the number of posts and found that I had inadvertently hit 100.
Sometimes Gamecocks win.

Good morning, all! It looks like the sun is going to burn off the fog after all. We’re in for another sunny (unseasonably warm) day. No jackets yesterday, and today already feels like spring. Although it’s nice, I always get a little nervous if I don’t feel like I’ve had a real winter. I can live without the bone-chilling sub-zeros, but I appreciate a good bracing cold that lasts for a few months. I suppose our chance at snow has passed. Oh well, onward! :–)

I went to bed early and managed to get 9 hours of sleep — still battling a serious nighttime cough (the prescription cough syrups ain’t what they used to be now that everyone’s backed away from prescribing anything with codeine in it) & lots of fatigue, but I am feeling marginally better and should be ready to go back to work Monday.

Today is grout day to finish up the tile and then (I think) we move on to putting things in (like the toilet, sink, medicine cabinet, though I’m not sure who actually does that), then the beadboard, all dependent on when workers are available (I’m hoping and thinking it will go fast, though). So I may have a working bathroom again in 5 more days, maybe sooner? Joy.

Today I’m heading to the paint store to pick up the paint that will be needed to finish it all up in there.

Today I should finish my first round of edits on Biddy. They came Thursday afternoon and I actually had to go to work for the first time in a month yesterday plus entertain Adorables, so I got no work done in the editing department.

Good morning. My best friend was telling me that her daughter, a busy university student, was looking back over her Fitbit readings from a certain period of time — maybe a week — and tried to figure out why there was a 2-hour period in which she burned something like 500 calories. She couldn’t remember what she was doing at that time that would have caused such an expenditure.

Turns out the time period occurred while she was driving between the university and home along the same route she’d had a serious car accident the last time she’d been home for the holidays. Nervous tension.

Ooh, the white grout is nice, it’s going to look so bright and white in there. What a refreshing change from the 1950s-60s peach tile do-over some former owners chose. Now the bathroom looks like it belongs with the rest of the house.

Apparently the white-tile look was big in the early 1920s as people thought it looked so sanitary. 🙂

Michelle, from an editor’s side, it is so much fun to work through a book that is well written and has something to say (it’s actually even more fun to work through a book that isn’t well written but has something to say . . . and extremely tedious to work through one that isn’t well written and has nothing worthwhile to say). Working with the author to do those last little things to perfect the book is really satisfying.

Now that I can see the header photo on a larger screen than my phone I see the details. Not many churches have their own cemeteries anymore. That shows the age of the church. I have told you before there is a little, well over 100 year old Methodist church “up in the country” where I a related to most of the people buried there.

Michelle, on your list of questions from yesterday, I have relatives who are missionaries in Japan. It is a hard country theologically. Honour culture and Shinto beliefs deeply underlie what initially appears to be a Westernized and industrialized country. One missionary to Japan (not my relative) described evangelism there as being like putting your hand into an inflated balloon. As long as you hold your hand there, there is an indentation. When you take your hand away, the balloon returns to its normal shape. People in Japan will attend church for years, only to withdraw and return to their traditional beliefs because their family is pressuring them. They talk of the pressure that Muslims who convert to Christianity receive from their families, but I would say the pressure is even more intense among the Japanese – there might not be threats of violence, but sometimes ice can be more deadly than fire. My relatives have worked for years and have seen very little fruit, but they press on because of their great burden.

The church that we attended when I was a young child had its own cemetery. I remember playing with the other children among the tombstones. We were never frightened of the tombstones. There were some very spectacular ones – one white one had a tall pillar that towered above us. When youngest sibling got married, she had her pictures taken in that churchyard, as both she and her spouse had fond memories of the place. We have a picture of the two ringbearers, nephews of the bride and groom respectively, sitting together on a tombstone. The picture wasn’t posed, they had just both decided to rest while they were waiting for the next picture they needed to be in. Children can make a seat of anything.

Roscuro, that is my understanding of Japan, too, that it may be the hardest place in the world for evangelism. My church in Nashville had a friend from Japan, who was friends with many of us for years (her husband was stationed in America for several years). She was friends with us to learn English, but she became a true friend. She attended church events (a Bible study, picnics, etc.) and occasionally even a church service, and then simply went back to Japan. Have you read Silence? Extremely difficult reading.

Well duh, Peter, Churchyard=cemetery. I guess on some level I might have know that, but not consciously to put the two together. Thank you! Does churchyard perhaps sound more Old World , or New England and cemetery sound more New World? I don’t know. I guess when I read churchyard I pictured a more imposing brick or stone CHURCH, not a little wooden country church. 😉

It has been fun watching Chocolate, Chip and Cookie playing in the snow today. They don’t seem to mind the cold, about fifteen degrees. We didn’t either, and spent a couple hours playing in the snow. Did I mention I love the snow?

We’re getting some glorious weather in between our rains (which are due to return sometime late next week again). Blue skies, 70-degree temperatures, mountains covered in snow in the distance.

I went out yesterday to pick up the paint for the bathroom and stop at the grocery store, though, and that was enough to kind of wipe me out. I’m staying in from church today, I’m still coughing a lot and just feel overall tired. But I went to bed early (and fell asleep despite the a karaoke party in the neighborhood performing “Disco Inferno”) and I feel better this morning. At one point I also could hear the nightly playing of Taps from the military base, intermixed with the disco karaoke, very odd.

Tile guy Miguel returns this morning to seal all the tile; he was supposed to return late yesterday to do that but got held up and couldn’t make it. That will be the end of his role (I paid him yesterday). Then the dry wall people return early Tuesday morning to paint & start dealing with the beadboard. At some point this week the sink and toilet, lights and medicine cabinet will be installed and then … Ta-da. I should have a bathroom again by next weekend, at long last.

Chas, we have no snow here, at least so far (but a very heavy frost), but I awoke sick. I don’t want to go out sick in 17 degree weather and I don’t want to spread any germs I may have, and I barely slept last night, so putting them all together and it seemed best to stay home.

I was sitting here with a window open yesterday, as defiant daughter opened and poured out a bottle of stinky lotion though she knows it gives her brother asthma attacks, The only thing I expected to fly in would have been a snow owl or juncos.

Last night the fire did not stay like it is supposed to. About two I woke up and thought, it is only supposed to get down to twelve this morning, we are fine. Then decided to get up anyway and do something for it. Turned out it was actually down about zero so I am glad for the wake up call.

I’m feeling so much better today, but I’m going to stay home from church so that I can fully recover. The windows are going to be open today to air out this sick house. We should be up around the freezing mark so it shouldn’t get too chilly. I still have a sinus infection – seems like a perpetual thing in my life 😦 I slept 10 straight hours last night.

I was up early this morning. One of my nocturnal asthma attacks. I didn’t go to Sunday School, but I went to church. I had to sit down and I couldn’t sing all of the songs. Thankful for friends who give rides home from church. I wore myself out yesterday running errands and I haven’t been feeling strong since I got back. Hoping that this doesn’t any worse.

A cardinal was sitting on my breakfast room table, then took flight up and back out the door after I spoke to him. It was awesome in the true sense of the word. I was in awe that he was there. They say a cardinal is a visit from heaven and if someone in heaven was thinking of me and sent the cardinal? That that is just fine by me.

Yay! I got back to church today after several weeks of not being there. All week long, Karen planned to attend with me. Then late yesterday she called me in tears saying she could not go because she has been watching news about Trump that had really upset her. Then we almost got into a political argument, but I talkedvher out of that. At the end of our conversation she had recommitted to going with me, and she was happyily giving commentary of the Falcons football game. This morning she wanted a wakeup call and then said she was sick an unable to attend. This is a real rollar coaster ride.

I worked most of yesterday shopping for office supplies and setting up the office storage room for tax season. I still have more things to purchase. I got some things at Sam’s Club instead of from Office Depot.

Miss Bosley knocked over Art’s lemonade which spilled, ice and all, on the carpet. She has been a Sunday afternoon nuisance as she had already been clawing at the television screen. I had chased her away from that so she was primed for bad behavior. Then I reopened the Windows and she settled into being a contented cat. This weather is dreamy and spring fever inducing. I slept with open windows last night.

Pastor is from a smaller town in Georgia and said everyone he knew when young attended church. He was surprised when he finally met a boy who did not attend church. It was not that way in Atlanta, and it’s just gotten worse through the years. The people I knew who went were more like cultural Christians rather than in depth believers.

Something I have noticed more of lately, in the night, is motorcycles racing at top speeds on long stretches of roads in our area. I always think I will hear a crash. I can not imagine what they are doing. Has anyone else heard an increase in such nighttime sounds/activities?

Kim, I’ve never had a cardinal inside my house, though I did have one that for several weeks attacked my car mirror several times a day. Then a few weeks later he found the mirror on the other side. Then he found the mirror on the car next door, so he had three “birds” to attack several times a day. My husband and I joked about his wife back at the nest, “Yeah, tough boy, how many birds did you fight today? I just sent you out to get me a little breakfast and you come dragging in 45 minutes later!”

In college I arrived to work one day, in a basement office that had some casement windows in it, to find several members of my staff racing around trying to catch a small bird. I asked them to get to work and leave the bird to me, and I proceeded to ignore the bird for 10 minutes or so myself, to give it a chance to recover from the chase. Then it went to a window and tried to get out, and while it was focused on the light I caught it easily.

Interesting sermon toady. The text was Isaiah 55:1f. But the topic was “Why God does what He does. Like He Does, When He does what He does”. He never got to the text, but it was an interesting sermon. Bottom line? God is Sovereign, works Slowly, Simply and Scripturally. God is Love.

Finally, I had a much needed recovery nap today with no workmen around for the first time all week since I’ve been so sick. The house is so quiet. I’m planning to brave the dog park later today, Cowboy & Tess are going stir crazy this week with nothing but the backyard (on top of their stress over the workers being around).

Our “breaking weather alert” was a dud….not even an inch of snow…it is 27 degrees and feels cold!! We stayed home today…husband has a nasty cold…I thought I was getting it but I think it was all in my head….psychosomatic symptoms…hope it stays that way! So now not only do I live with a retired husband…I live with a retired husband with a cold….have mercy!!

Little Guy is so excited about being in basketball & soccer now. He just came down to show me his “sports outfit” – basketball shorts, soccer socks, & the pair of sneakers that are just for playing those sports. (Because they play on the high school gym floor, they can only wear sneakers that are not worn outside. They have to change into them when they get there.)

This weekend I got started on this year’s Valentine’s Day cards for girls (nieces, girls from church, and a few adult friends). I have to take a sample to the post card to make sure it isn’t too expensive to mail, but hopefully it won’t be, since I like it. It’s an action model that folds out to be three-dimensional. I think the design is quite pretty and it gives me freedom to play with a lot of pretty papers, laces, stickers, whatever I want to use. It’s hard to believe we’re at that time again, but as long as I can mail it without paying premiums, I just need to make a few a week for the next few weeks and they’ll be ready to go.

Ice melted today. It was still there about noon but then it warmed up to 34. I guess Idaho Mike made it through here okay since there were no news reports about semis going off the road. They usually report every accident like that on the local news.